Verse Curse
by Fido the Finch
Summary: Nightwing, Red Robin, and Red Hood are investigating a string of crimes when they meet a strange lady who wants them to help her look for her lost cat inside books. They end up more or less cursed. "How am I supposed to intimidate a crook when I sound like I sprouted from a story book?"
1. Chapter 1

Nightwing dropped through the window silently and rolled to a crouch behind a nearby armchair. When he counted to ten and didn't hear any noise, he peeked around the corner to scan the room. No heat signatures. He switched his lenses back to night vision.

"What do you see?" Red Robin asked through his comm.

Nightwing stood, confident he was alone inside, and strolled past aisle after aisle of bookshelves. "Three guesses." Then he stopped abruptly. "Oh my gosh."

Red Robin froze, one foot inside a window on the opposite side of the library. "What is it?"

"It's Jason!" Nightwing picked up the book that had caught his eye. It was a romance, if the flowers and the way the woman was _draped_ over the man was anything to go by. "He has the leather jacket and bike and everything! You've got to see this."

"Nightwing, focus."

"Right." Nightwing started to set the book on the shelf, then thought better of it and carried it to the cart at the end of the aisle. "Oracle said the break-ins have been happening back toward the children's wing. We should check there, first."

"I'm in. I'll meet you there."

Nightwing skimmed his gloved fingers over the shelves as he cut through an aisle into the heart of the Gotham City Public Library. At its center, the floor fell away to a grand atrium. The first time he had come as Dick Grayson, he had nearly run into one of the many long tables in the center while staring at the skylights six floors up.

He caught sight of movement across the balcony, and gave Red Robin a wave.

Red Robin nodded back—he had been more reserved since shedding the Robin mantle. "Children's wing?" The boy hadn't been much of a reader as a kid. At least, not the kind who would frequent the library.

Fortunately, Dick had. "First floor." With a grin, Nightwing shot off his grapple line into one of the beams on the ceiling and vaulted over the balcony. He swung down until his feet skimmed one of the long tables and somersaulted to a stop. Then he glanced up. "Come on, slow poke," he tossed over his shoulder.

Red Robin, ever the sensible one, trotted down the last few steps of the grand stairway.

Side by side, they crept toward the children's wing. Nightwing gave a low whistle when they passed over the "drawbridge" serving as entrance. The wing was decorated like a castle, complete with spiral stairways, a small indoor garden, and shelf upon waist-high shelf stuffed with books.

But it looked as though a tornado had hit. Every window pane had shattered, leaving glistening shards inside and out. The windows had been hastily covered with thick sheets of plastic that bulged inward under the pressure of the cold air. All of the books from the aisles nearest the window were strewn through the floor haphazardly, the paper butterflies normally strung from the ceiling crushed beneath them.

Red Robin bent to pick up the nearest one, and was surprised when Nightwing suddenly dropped to a crouch beside him, a hand on his back guiding him lower to the floor so they wouldn't be seen over the toddler-sized bookshelves. Finger to his lips, he subtly tilted his head toward the window.

There was the silhouette of a figure a few feet outside the plastic, rising from a crouch. It was hard to judge size or shape of the body warped as it was against the plastic, but there was no mistaking the shape of a gun when it was held up in preparation of fire. Nightwing's hand tensed on Red Robin's back, and Red Robin reached for a smoke pellet.

The bullet didn't come. A knife made quick work of shredding the plastic, and the figure stepped through, revealing a leather jacket, combat boots, and a red helmet. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," the synthesized voice sing-songed.

"Red Hood," Nightwing said, cautiously rising from his crouch.

It was clear through the tilt of the helmet that the Red Hood was rolling his eyes. He dropped his gun back into its holster and sighed. "Goldie. What are you doing here?"

Red Robin popped up next to Nightwing. "We could ask you the same."

Hood scoffed. "Word on the street is somebody's messing with the kids at the library."

Nightwing cocked his head to the side. "The break-ins have been at night. Nobody has been here when it happened."

"Yeah, but why would somebody mess with a bunch of children's books? None of them are missing or damaged, but somebody is deliberately trashing the area."

"So what, you think it's drugs?"

"I didn't say that." Hood stooped down to pick up one of the books and flipped through the pages, checking the seams for anything suspicious. "But I'm not about to rule it out before investigating."

They scanned each book slowly and methodically, careful not to displace any evidence. The books, true to what Oracle had reported, were in perfect condition. Well, as perfect condition as children's library books could be. Nightwing blew some dried cereal crumbs from the spine of _Stellaluna_ before reverently putting it back in its place on the bookshelf.

Red Robin was the first to break the easy silence they had been sharing. "You know what's weird?"

Jason grunted, snapping a cardboard book closed with a flourish. "We're adults who broke into the children's wing of a public library to read books for preschoolers?"

Red Robin didn't even blink. "All of these books are about the same thing."

Nightwing and Red Hood gave him a look, but it was Jason who responded. "Uh, duh."

"No, they all have animals in them." He held open _The Tale of Peter Rabbit_. "Small animals, like rodents or birds."

They looked down at the books scattered across the floor, and he was right. Animals were featured prominently on all the covers.

"It could be a coincidence," Nightwing started. "A lot of children's books have animals in them."

"We're bats, and this is Gotham. It's not a coincidence."

Red Hood snorted. "So we're looking for a criminal who likes stories about critters. You think we're looking for a furry?"

"I don't know what it means," Red Robin shot back. "Yet," he added, punctuating it by pulling another book open more forcefully than necessary.

The three vigilantes spent nearly an hour like that, examining the books that had been pulled from their shelves. Nightwing was the first to admit defeat, "If I read one more book about visiting a zoo I'll know more than Robin. I don't think it's the books, Hood."

Red Hood's helmet let out a mechanized grunt as the man rose back to standing. "I hate to agree with you, but." He ended the sentence there by placing the book he had been holding back on the shelf.

"We should check the rest of the stuff here," Red Robin suggested.

Jason sniggered, "You want to play with the blocks?"

Nightwing smirked. "I don't see any, Hood. What are you talking about?"

Jason huffed and strode toward the opposite corner of the children's section, Nightwing and Red Robin following closely. There were soft foam mats coating the floor here, and a small corner held a stand of puppets, a block station, and soft pillows and blankets for creating a reading space. The entire area was in a similar state as the book shelves, but further examination found nothing more interesting than a few boogers and stale cereal pieces.

With samples collected from the surfaces of the doors, the spines of a few books, and the windows, the vigilantes decided to look at the security footage from the night before. The security room was across the library, so they picked their way through the mess in the children's wing and followed Red Hood through a "shortcut" through the adult fiction.

There was a loud bang from one of the shelves, as though a book had spontaneously decided to go skydiving. Hood pulled up short, and it was only Bat-reflexes that kept Nightwing and Red Robin from tumbling over him. He held a finger over the mouth area of his helmet, a signal both unnecessary and ridiculous. They waited a beat, ears straining for a follow-up noise of some sort. When none came, Nightwing sent Red Hood to the left of the nearest bookshelf. He and Red Robin crept toward the aisle from the right.

Red Robin flipped through the different lenses of his cowl, looking for a heat signature or some clue as to what they were up against. He found nothing, until the newest, experimental lens picked up a haze of elevated micro-vacillations coming from the direction of the aisle. He put a hand out to pull Nightwing back by his shoulder, but before he could make contact, a cloud of dust and violent wind rushed past them.

Red Hood sidestepped into the aisle, and Nightwing and Red Robin took cover also. The wind lost all of its momentum before it reached the children's section a few yards back.

Nightwing's fingers were pressed to his temple, no doubt looking for the same things as Red Robin had been. He dropped his hand with a humph. "There's nobody there," he whispered.

"What was _that_ ," Red Hood asked, not bothering to lower his voice.

Nightwing's nose twitched, and he sneezed. "Smells like lavender," he noted.

"I think it's magic," Red Robin said. He was looking through his experimental filter again, but it wasn't picking up anything out of the ordinary.

Red Hood snorted. "You think?"

"My new filter is able to pick up changes in the micro-vacillations of—"

"Full offense, but it caused wind where there wasn't before. Pretty obvious." Hood pulled a gun out and clicked the safety off. "Your fancy filter able to tell if it can be shot?"

"That won't be necessary, dear."

Without hesitation, Jason flipped around and pointed his gun at the speaker. "Who are you?" Nightwing and Red Robin's hands flew to where they stored their own weapons. They were caught off-guard by the sight of a round woman with bright white hair pulled back into a messy bun. Delicate half-moon glasses sat on the bridge of her freckly nose.

And she was floating, about an inch off the ground.

The woman pouted, but otherwise made no move to defend herself. "You don't know me?"

The brothers exchanged glances. "No?"

She sighed, raising her gaze to the ceiling. "Kids these days. Don't read anymore. Technology is ruining their brains." Then crossing her arms, "Doesn't matter. Have you seen my cat?"

"Oh my god," Red Hood said. His gun dropped back to his side.

"Language, dear!"

"You're the book lady."

She hummed through a smile. "You must be one of our castle knights!" As she said it, she twirled a hand in the air and nodded sagely. "Pleasure to meet you again, young sir."

Nightwing and Red Robin gave him sideways looks. Red Hood was still, his appreciation for his helmet increasing with each second he could feel a flush creeping up his cheeks. Nightwing coughed, and Red Hood explained, "The reading program." He cocked his head in the lady's direction. "She's the one who helped kids check out books."

The woman floated closer to him, hovering to where she was about eye-level with the helmet. "You remember Percival? My cat?"

"Uh, yes? White, fluffy?"

She clapped her hands together. "Yes yes yes, that's him. You can say 'fat' dear, he is unashamed of his lifestyle."

"Okay—"

"Well, I need your help to find him." With that, she turned around and pulled a book off the shelf.

There was a moment's pause, the bats trying to make sense of the situation. Nightwing looked like he was ready to escort her to a nursing facility.

When she turned back around and saw that nobody had moved, she threw the book down in disgust. "Get to reading! We haven't got all night!" She pulled several books from the shelves and tossed them over her shoulders to the three boys. Nightwing and Red Robin dodged like startled cats avoiding hose water.

Jason caught his with a grunt. "Wouldn't your cat be, like, thirty now? If he's disappeared, it's because he's dead."

Red Robin gave him a reproachful look.

The lady floated back around slowly, tapping a finger on the spine of the book in her hand. "You do have a point," she said. "But time works differently inside the stories, so I'm not sure if he's physically thirty years old yet. He's a big fan of the _Redwall_ series, you know." She winked at Jason. "I remember you were his favorite reader because you always let him pick out the books for you."

At this, Nightwing couldn't hold back a laugh. "Really, Hood?"

Jason's shoulders tensed. "I was in the library a lot." Then his head whipped back around to the woman. "Wait, you know who I am?"

The lady nodded with a small smile. "I remember all of the knights of the fortress, Sir Jason." She examined Red Robin and Nightwing down the bridge of her nose. They had gone stock still at the sound of their brother's name. "I don't know either of you, though. Not big readers?"

Red Robin swallowed audibly. His cowl was showing another burst of energy gearing up to shoot away from her.

Nightwing stepped forward, one hand held up palm-forward in a 'hold your horses' gesture. He picked up the book he had previously dodged and flipped through the first few pages. "So, are we reading to find your cat?" He used the voice he did when he talked to the elderly. Red Hood called it his Boy Scout voice.

The lady nodded, and to Red Robin's relief the swell of energy was put on simmer. "I already checked all of the picture books in the city."

The vigilantes put two and two together. " _You're_ the one responsible for this crime spree?" Red Hood asked.

She scoffed. "It's hardly a crime to read books."

Red Robin's chin ducked into a glower. "There's property damage. The old book store by the mall had to close for good."

This made her frown. "I didn't mean for it to happen. Books without pictures are. . . " she flipped her palm back and forth and bobbed her head to the side, "tricky."

Nightwing's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?" His grip on the book tightened like he was preparing to throw it.

"Percival is easier to find in the pictures. There's a lot of reading to do otherwise. And it's harder to control what bits come out." She had turned back to the shelves, but she peeked over her shoulder at the book in Jason's hands. "I've already checked that one, you can put it back."

Then she smoothed her fingers over the book in her hands. Red Robin's cowl gave him enough warning to pull Red Hood and Nightwing back. Her eyes began to glow, and she opened the book to somewhere in the middle.

There was another burst of lavender wind. Before he could second-guess himself, Red Robin threw a stun grenade toward the woman. The vigilantes ducked in time for it to go off.

There was a gasp of surprise. The book she had been holding dropped to the floor. "You stupid boys." Her eyes didn't stop glowing, but they were unfocused as she turned toward where they last were. "If you aren't going to help me, then get out of my way!" Her voice rose in volume until it rattled the bookshelves around them.

"Retreat, retreat!" Nightwing muttered into his comm. The woman's burning eyes were already regaining clarity, and they locked on Nightwing's position.

Red Hood pulled Red Robin behind an aisle of books. Nightwing held fast, drawing attention away from his brothers. The woman slowly raised a hand, and as it rose it began to glow. The pages in the open book at her feet began to flip madly.

"Hey, over here!" Red Hood lobbed a heavy hardback at her. It grazed her shoulder, and she glanced in his direction, giving Nightwing the opening he needed to flip over a desk and take cover. At the same time, Red Hood ducked back into the aisle. "Come on, come on," he whispered, pulling him along until they were out of sight enough they could move to a different aisle.

With a snap of her fingers, the glowing book slammed shut. "You can't hide from me," she hissed. The wind around her picked up, and she rose another foot off the ground and began floating toward the bookshelves. The front shelf shook and rocked onto its side, spilling books to the floor.

Nightwing winced. Babs was _not_ going to be happy about that.

There was a pillar in the aisle between the first and second shelf, preventing a domino effect. Still, the wind was continuing to pick up, shooting books from the cases like shrapnel. Red Hood cursed when a book slammed into his helmet, cracking the exterior. He and Red Robin were forced to hunker down to protect their heads from the flying concussions waiting to happen. The woman sneered in glee as she floated closer to where they were hiding.

Nightwing waited until she was a fair distance away before slinking from his hiding place, escrima in hand. He waited until her position was _just_ right, and took a running start to vault off a shelf and onto her back. "Sorry, ma'am, I wouldn't normally do this to somebody your age," he grunted. She elbowed him in the abs, but he locked an escrima around her neck, squeezing in hopes of cutting off blood to the brain.

She bucked once, twice, then zoomed over the aisles, the Red vigilantes forgotten, toward the atrium. Nightwing held fast, pulling his feet up so they wouldn't knock into every shelf they passed. He had had enough experience with supers to not be fazed by the sudden speed change, but it didn't quiet prepare him for the change in direction once they reached the atrium.

She smiled manically as she shot toward the ceiling. Nightwing threw his weight back, hoping to knock her off course. She only sped up. Nightwing held tighter, hiding his face in the crook of his shoulder as they neared. He just caught a glimpse of Red Robin rounding the corner into the atrium when _wham!_ they made impact.

Well, Nightwing did. She slid right through, like water through a cheese grater.

He only had a moment to revel in it before he started to fall.

He dropped his escrima in favor of reaching for his grapple gun. It wasn't there. "Damn woman," he grumbled.

There was a _zip_! and a body slammed into him mid-descent. The trajectory was off in the oddly-shaped room and with the added weight, so Red Robin and Nightwing slammed into the piece of wall just below the third story, where Red's grapple was wrapped around the banister. Red Robin took the brunt of the impact, and Nightwing's eyes widened when the younger boy's head cracked against the wall.

"Tim," he gasped, grabbing the grapple line when Red Robin's hand went slack. He pulled them both up and over the edge of the banister. Red Robin's eyes were slow to start focusing again, but he was pouting. "You design a cowl but don't make it a functional helmet?" Nightwing joked.

"I've got pretty thick skin," Red Robin replied. "Suppose the thick skull would come with it."

Nightwing wasn't sure if the comment was supposed to be as pointed as it came out. The familiar seed of guilt ached in his chest.

Red Hood jogged toward them both. "Where did she go?"

Nightwing, still supporting Red Robin as he caught his bearings, looked up. "I think she went through."

There was a hiss as Red Hood deactivated his helmet and pulled it off. Luckily, he was wearing his domino underneath. It didn't hide the displeased face he pointed at the ceiling. "Magic users; they're all the same."

Red Robin pushed himself off Nightwing's shoulder. "That was different than anything I've seen before." He turned his back to the two older vigilantes. "I need to review the footage I got tonight."

"Wait," Nightwing said.

Red Robin hesitated but didn't turn around. His back was taught.

Nightwing dropped the hand he had reached toward him. Whatever he was going to say, it hadn't been, "We should double-check downstairs, see if she left anything."

Red Robin rolled his shoulders back and nodded, then brushed past them both toward the steps. He was favoring his right leg slightly.

"Trouble in paradise?" Red Hood asked, watching the teen's retreating form.

Nightwing's eyebrows furrowed and his shoulders drooped. "Define paradise."

"Your call, Goldie; your consequences."

Nightwing didn't bother answering, instead shaking his head. He following Red Robin downstairs and found him examining a handful of gold coins he definitely had not had before.

"They're real," Red Robin provided without prompt.

Nightwing's eyebrows raised. They had to be worth a fortune. "She must have dropped them."

Red Hood kicked aside a few more books. There was a hefty layer of them along the floor. "What would she need them for?"

Nightwing shrugged. "I don't recognize the insignia. We should take them back to the Cave for—" he cut himself off when he caught a whiff of lavender.

He shouted a warning too late. There she was, at the end of the aisle, book open in her hands. She smiled a deceptively sweet smile. "Goodnight, sweet prince," she sing-songed. Then she blew across the open pages, and a cloud of sparkly dust wafted up from the pages. "And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

It was a lavender smell so thick it was hard to breathe. Red Hood was hit first, and he immediately started coughing. Red Robin fell to his knees on the first inhale, chest heaving for something other than that smell. Nightwing reached for his rebreather, but he was either too late or the magic didn't work like that. He and Red Hood doubled over, trying to breathe through the smoke-like dust.

Through watery eyes, Nightwing watched as the woman's lips pulled back into a self-satisfied smile. She gave another quick puff against the book, shooting more of the dust into the air, and brushed a hand across the pages for good measure.

He got distracted when Red Hood fell back against the bookcase, drawing his attention lower. Wind picked up, flipping books over and racing through their pages. The fog was heavy, pressing Nightwing down until he stumbled and caught himself with one hand. The edges of his vision were going black.

When the woman gently drifted away, nobody was conscious to see it.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I severely underestimated the time it would take to write this dialogue. Hope the wait was worth it!**

It was early morning when Nightwing started to peel his eyes open. He shifted with a grunt; something hard was jabbing the middle of his back. There was an answering groan from behind him, and that's when his eyes focused on the books strewn all over the floor. He gasped as he righted himself, the lingering effects of the magic making his limbs heavy. "Is everyone okay?"

Red Hood coughed, setting loose some of the dust that had settled on his shoulders. "I think I hit my head." He aborted his first attempt at prying himself off the floor with a grimace when the movement shot another pulse of pain down his spine. The second attempt was more careful, but he smacked his forehead on the shaft of a spear that pinned a book to the shelf behind him. "Yikes. I guess we're lucky we're not dead."

Red Robin sat up and blinked a few times at the dust that coated the floor, the furniture, and himself. "It's like we landed on Tatooine." At Red Hood's raised eyebrow, he rolled his eyes. "Star Wars? Not everyone here finds it fulfilling to live like you're under a rock."

"Enough," Nightwing commanded, pulling the skewered book from the shelf. He flipped it—and the spear attached—around in his hands a few times. "This little guy appeared from where?"

Red Hood snorted. "Beats me." When Nightwing started to examine the shaft, Jason saw that at least an inch of the pointier end of the spear had broken through the other side. His hands fumbled on the floor for his flashlight, and he grabbed the book from his brother's hands. "Let me see."

"You guys are going to think I'm crazy as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest," Red Robin started, scooping up a book from the floor that was now missing most of its pages, "but I swear I watched it fly like a bat from hell from the pages of this book."

Red Hood grunted with effort as he pulled the spear from the book. "We meet a magic-user and you can think of no other explanation?" He had his gloves on, but a quick pass along the edge of the spearhead cut through as easily as warm butter. "It's sharp, so not just a decoration."

Nightwing cocked his head to the side. "Why do you keep on doing that?"

Jason suddenly became very aware of his hands. When he was younger, Bruce would give him funny looks when he got antsy. His nerves tended to present themselves as old habits from his time on the streets, the most notable and hard to kick his habit of flexing and clenching his fingers. It kept blood flowing through cold hands and it kept scabs from forming too small over his knuckles. Bruce never outright asked him why the habit developed, so Jason never explained. Eventually, he figured, the world's greatest detective had figured it out.

But, seeing as his hands were occupied, he guessed it had more to do with his well-developed sense of irony. He tossed the spear toward Red Robin, who grabbed it with the practiced hand of a bō staff master. (It didn't stop the kid from glaring at him.) "It is my duty as an older brother to give him a hard time." He gave Red Robin a cheeky grin. "Just because you're slacking off on your job, Nightwing, doesn't mean I'm shirking mine."

"Can you not hear yourself?"

Red Hood cocked his head to the side in a silent question.

Red Robin rolled his eyes. "He's about as sharp as a marble." Giving an arched look to Red Hood, he added, "You aren't pulling this on me; I don't have a sense of humor like a child's."

"Your taste in cartoons gives me doubt. But seriously, what are you talking about?"

"You keep on making your words rhyme," Nightwing said, eyebrows furrowed.

Red Hood just gave him a questioning look.

Red Robin's wrist pinged, a signal from the Batcave suddenly reaching into the library. "We should make like a tree," he said, not bothering to finish the joke*. "Batman's probably pacing the Batcave like a dog by the fence."

"This place will open soon," Nightwing agreed. He stepped over a pile of books and winced. "Who wants to tell our resident librarian?"

"That's going to be quite the issue," Red Hood announced, standing and brushing residual magic-dust off his jacket. "Adieu."

"You wish," Nightwing snorted. He aborted an attempt to pull him back by his jacket sleeve when Red Hood sent a menacing glare his direction. "You talk like Dr. Seuss. We've got to check for other magic marks."

"Good luck getting him to the Cave, he avoids it like a cat avoids water."

It took every bit of Red Hood's willpower not to pout. "My place is cooler." He huffed when Nightwing raised an eyebrow. "And it lacks the spawn of the demon ruler."

At this, Red Robin nodded. "His point is sound as rock."

Red Hood gave Red Robin a subtle thumbs-up.

"You have the tools to figure that thing out?" Nightwing picked up the book the spear supposedly came from. Shaking it out produced a small cloud of glittery dust. More importantly, a small collection of dirt fell out. They stared at the dirt a moment before Red Robin moved to collect a sample.

"Fine," Red Hood answered for them. "But don't expect me not to whine."

They sped back toward the Cave without much heed for the traffic laws; the only people awake and on the roads were the city workers and housekeepers, whose dread for their day's work translated to piddling in the slow lanes. It left a clear path for the Bat-issued bikes and their occupants.

And, Nightwing figured, Oracle wouldn't risk anything too dangerous while they were driving at such speeds.

"Destroyed?" Oracle repeated over the comms. She didn't raise her voice, but she didn't need to. She could see the way Nightwing's heart monitor sped up at the tone.

"Uh, oops?" He offered as he zipped across the Gotham bridge.

"I send you to figure out who has been vandalizing the library, and in the process of collecting clues, you _destroy it?_ "

"Technically, it wasn't me," Red Hood said.

"We are all faultless as newborns," Red Robin said. "Oracle, there was a magic user who looked like she popped out of a fairy tale. She's the one who knocked the shelves over—"

" _You knocked the shelves over?"_

"—Like a giant playing dominoes." The three of them winced at the description.

Oracle took a deep breath. "I've got to go take care of this. Oracle offline."

"Nice job, you absolute doorknob."

Pennyworth was waiting for them when they arrived at the Cave.

Nightwing parked his bike and immediately got to work peeling off his domino. "Hey, Al." The stupid magic dust had settled around the edges of the mask, leaving an outline on his face.

"Alfred." Jason climbed off his bike, leaving a trail of magic dust behind him. The butler eyed it only a moment and returned his gaze to Jason, who had also removed his mask with a grin. "I'm guessing Oracle called ahead?"

Pennyworth nodded. "She seemed to be destressed." He watched Red Robin start to unload the vials of samples from his belt.

Other than a slight limp from the youngest and the cracked helmet the middle pulled from the back of his bike, he saw no injuries. No blood, no visible internal injuries—for once it looked like it had gone well. "I trust the night went well?" He made eye contact with Tim for a little too long, a dare for him to not speak up about his injury.

"I'm—generally—right as rain," the youngest replied, obviously aware the question was directed mainly at himself.

Alfred sniffed—they all reeked of lavender. "Then may I suggest a shower?"

"Let us unpack the clues," Dick said. He fiddled with the container on the side of his bike for a second, and Alfred stepped back when he pulled out a spear.

"Where did you find that?"

"I think that it was thrown at me." He rolled it down his palm so he could balance the shaft on his finger. "It's kind of nice. It has some weight."

Jason pulled a small collection of books from his saddle bag. They were coated in a thick layer of the dust.

"I don't suppose Red Hood has a library card?" Alfred asked, eyeing the barcodes across the back covers.

Jason slid them onto the table of collected items—gold coins, the spear, books, and samples of dirt and dust. "Long story. We're gonna need the laboratory."

Alfred arched one eyebrow, looking between Dick, Tim, and Jason. "Something is off with you three."

For all of the acting lessons he had given them over the years, they were terrible at hiding their discomfort with the observation.

Tim was the first to speak up. "Don't worry like a mother hen."

This did nothing to help.

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. "We ran into a magic girl. It's prob'ly best you stay away."

Alfred opened his mouth to retort, but Dick smiled at him. "I swear, we're fine."

There was dust in his teeth.

Alfred squared his shoulders. "You _will_ notify me if anything should happen."

"I know."

Alfred began ascending the stairs. "There are cookies and sandwiches in the kitchen. For _after_ you've cleaned yourselves up." Implied was the admonition for not fessing up to their injuries—he didn't offer to bring it down to them.

They waited until he had disappeared through the clock to start examining their evidence more closely. Tim pulled small samples of the dust and dirt out of the tubes he had used to collect them to smear onto a microscope slide. The rest of the sample was placed in the computer's chemical analysis chamber. The computer would take a while, but all three of them knew enough about basic science to know what they were looking at through a microscope.

Tim slid the dirt in first, and all three were able to look on an attached screen. It looked. . . mostly unremarkable. "Bland as a biscuit," Tim said. He continued to slowly creep the view around the slide, when something caught his eye. "There's something there, shiny as polished brass."

Jason squinted at the screen a moment before knocking Tim's hand aside to adjust the focus. Baby bird needed to get his eyes checked. "Dirt, spores from mold. . . I'm not crazy, but I think that's gold."

"Let me," Nightwing said, adjusting the zoom so they could look at the shiny flecks more closely. That close, it was unmistakable. "I think that you're correct."

"So someone checked this book out with a library card, then went and read it in a gold-flecked yard?"

"The dirt is coarse like sand, not fine like Gotham's silt," Tim added.

"So it was not a Gothamite." Nightwing frowned. "The mold should give a us location." He toward the computer screen, where a progress bar was slowly inching toward two percent completion. "Computer won't be finished for a while."

While Tim and Dick looked over the dirt sample again, Jason wandered over toward the table of knickknacks. He picked up the spear. Goldie hadn't been kidding about the quality of it. Still, something itched at the back of his mind when he looked over the weapon. "Why a spear? There have got to be plenty other, more effective ways to murder somebody here."

"Tim said he saw it poof into being."

"He said it was from the book." He gave Tim's back a calculating look, and dropped his voice to a whisper. "I think it was the effect of that grappling hook."

Tim scowled. "I don't know how you ever managed stealth when you talk loud as the man selling hotdogs at a baseball game."

"I think he heard," Dick winced.

Tim rolled his eyes, flipping the microscope screen off. He picked up one of the books from the table. "Look at this and tell me it doesn't reek like the fields of Provence." He thumbed through the pages, and it sent a small plume of lavender dust into the air that settled over the table.

The library book— _The Gladiator's Tale_ —was relatively unscathed. But there were a few pages about two thirds of the way in with mangled edges, as though something had been forced through them.

"The damage could be caused by a projectile? I suppose?" Dick shrugged.

Jason's eyes widened. "Did anybody see which book she blew on us? I have a theory I would like to discuss."

Dick shook his head, but Tim looked thoughtful for a second, then started sliding some of the book aside. "The dust was thick as fog, but I think it was this one." He tapped an old, beat-up copy of Shakespear's _Hamlet_.

Jason cursed. Then, unnecessarily, followed it up with, "I think I get it."

"She can zap things into creation like some kind of instant 3-D printer?"

"That wouldn't explain why we're stuck with this curse. I think our answer is worse." He stuck out fingers as he began listing off evidence. "She worked in a library, she flies, her fashion sense is tragic. I think we're dealing with book magic."

"Explain," Dick demanded.

"She can pull these things from a book. That's why she chose a library to be a crook."

Dick smacked his forehead. "The cat. I bet if she can pull from books her magic also lets her push. The cat is in a story somewhere."

The three boys stood around the table, considering the information. Tim rifled through _Hamlet_. "It looks as unaffected as Superman after a bullet."

Jason groaned. "It's Shakespeare. The effect is clear. I think that because of this crime, now when I speak I have to rhyme."

"And iambs are my curse," Dick added.

Tim crossed his arms. "I think the blast swept past me like the wind passes a city window. My speech is faultless as a fresh-bloomed rose."

Jason groaned. "Unfortunately, it's clear to me that your curse is to speak – "

"In simile," Dick finished.

"In simile," Jason said. The words were forced from his mouth before he could stop them. He frowned. "Don't steal my thunder, it looks like I have to finish despite your plunder."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

The three boys stood around the table, staring blankly at one another.

Dick huffed out a breath. "Whate'er it is, at least it's harmless. I do think that we should wait for confirmation from the computer."

Tim snorted. "Easy for you to say. You sound normal as a vanilla milkshake."

Dick frowned. "That isn't true. I do not think that I can say some words because the sentence structure is so strict."

"Just get the words in there, and we'll translate. Tim and I will have to just deal with it while we wait."

"It should not be that bad."

Tim's phone beeped. A notification lit up the screen. He had a Wayne Enterprise meeting in a few hours. He glared down at it. "Yeah, this is going to be easy." There was a pause, as though he were trying to hold words back. It was no use. "As drowning a fish."

 ***** and 'leaf'


End file.
